we're talking to amy gottlieb wifevi ragbir from his amy gottlieb and his lawyer alina das. we will hear about that journey behind bars when ravi ragbir was not accessible to the public, what this means, the people he saw behind bars, when we come back. ♪ [music break] amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. on monday, a federal judge in new york city ordered the immediate release of immigrant rights leader ravi ragbir from ice detention, calling it "unnecessarily cruel." but his ordeal is not over. katherineict judge forrest wrote of the due process at stake in this case -- "the process that was due here is not process that will allow him to stay indefinitely those of those processes have been had. the processes to here is the allowance that he know and understand the time has come that he must organize his own affairs and that he must do so by a date certain. that is what is due. that is the process required after a life living among us." is thevi ragbir executive director of the new century coalition one

joining us now is amy gottlieb, ravi ragbir's wife. lk about what is happening with ravi right now. we are speaking to jean, just deported to haiti. ra that is wherevi ravi is right now? >> that's right. amy: a news reporter on tuesday during the hearing for ravi ragbir said "today an assistant u.s. attorney said he did not know why ice detained them when they did. he was detained to affect removal. what we don't know is why they did it now. can you explain? >> so we had a hearing yesterday to try -- i'm in, our ultimate role is to get him released, but we were trying to get him at least right back to the new york area so he cannot act is to counsel, access to his family, act as to his community. there was a back-and-forth kind of complicated legal hearing yesterday. the judge was really saying, why on january 11 did you detained ravi? he had a stay of deportation, under an order of supervision and had fully complied. he had not turned away. he had not tried to hide. he was 100% in compliance with that order of supervision. even the jud

amy: that is ravi ragbir in our studio last year with his wife amy gottlieb, who is also an immigrantsights attorney. do you think he and jean have been targeted? why now? why have the been taken after both have been in this country for wellll over, well, a quarter of a a century and more than 300 years? >> the film m conclusion we cann draw, they have been targeted. we are heard about people being targeted around the country now and it is mystifying why suddenly --ravi still has a legal case. nothing is changed in his case since march. we are still in the same legal posture. he is a case pending in their home in case is going to take away the grounds of deportability. there is no doubt both ravi and jean have really been speaking out, educating communities, leading in a company met prprograms of people -- accompaniment program. amy: i would return to interview i did this weekend in colorado in carbondale with sandra lopez, who has taken sanctuary in colorado. she is a mexican mother of three u.s. citizen children. she has taken centuries to avoid being deported to mexico. last weekend

those who will be attending, cesar espinosa, an immigrant rights activist in houston, texas, and amy gottlieb, an immigration lawyer and the wife of detained immigrant rights leader ravi ragbir. accompanying nydia velazquez. and supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg has announced she will not be attending the state of the union. she's been a vocal critic of president trump. the justice department is seeking to add a question about whether people are u.s.s. citits to the u.s. census. 2020 immigrant rights advocates have slammed the move, saying it will cause millions of people to not participate in the census, and therefore, further limit governrnment services and political representation in majority immigrant communities. the longtime investigative journalist robert parry has died at the age of 68. as a reporter at the associated press in the 1980's, he helped exposed how the reagan administration was secretly sending arms to iran in what became known as the iran-contra scandal. bob parry also revealed the role of the u.s.-backed nicaraguan contras in drug trafficking here in the united s